A lawyer, Onyedikachi Ifedi, has challenged the Supreme Court’s decision to revive charges that the Court of Appeal had earlier quashed in the trial of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) leader Nnamdi Kanu.
On October 13, 2022, the Court of Appeal discharged and acquitted Kanu, striking out counts 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 14 of the 15-count charge on the grounds that they disclosed no offence against him.
The court retained counts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 13 and 15.However, in a judgment delivered on December 15, 2023, the Supreme Court set aside the Court of Appeal’s decision and remitted the case to the Federal High Court for continuation of the trial.
Ifedi, a member of the Mazi Nnamdi Kanu Global Legal Consortium, also faulted what he described as the apex court’s decision to rewrite the statutory foundation of count 15, which later became count 7 when the matter returned to the Abuja Federal High Court.
In a statement made available to journalists in Umuahia, the lawyer posed two direct questions to the Supreme Court:
“What law revived the seven counts quashed by the Court of Appeal? What law authorised the Supreme Court to substitute the statutory foundation of Count 15, later numbered Count 7 at the Federal High Court?“
"The Supreme Court had appellate jurisdiction. But appellate jurisdiction does not itself confer a power to resurrect a quashed charge or rewrite the statutory foundation of a criminal accusation.”
He challenged the court to produce the specific law that empowered it to take those steps, insisting:
“If the law permits either act, show us the law.” He stressed that the Supreme Court is not supreme over the law.Ifedi further criticised descriptions of the Supreme Court as a “court of policy,” arguing that policy cannot grant powers the law has withheld.
“Policy cannot revive a quashed charge. Policy cannot replace a repealed statute. Policy cannot confer criminal jurisdiction,” he said.
“The Supreme Court may interpret and develop the law. It cannot legislate the criminal law required to reach a preferred outcome. It is supreme within the judicial hierarchy. It is not supreme over the law.”
He noted that the subsequent recusal of Justice Binta Nyako might explain why proceedings restarted before another judge and why a fresh plea was taken.
However, he maintained that a change of judge is merely procedural and cannot resolve the more fundamental question of the legal status of the previously quashed counts.
“There must first be a legally cognisable accusation,” he said, quoting Justice Lawal Garba’s own principle that “a court cannot confer jurisdiction where the law has not conferred it.”
Ifedi also alleged that the Supreme Court’s handling of the case contradicted its earlier decision in Onu Okafor v The State (1976), in which the apex court refused a retrial because the original proceeding lacked the legal authority to commence.
On count 15, which concerned the alleged importation and concealment of a radio transmitter and was originally pleaded under Section 47(2)(a) of the Criminal Code Act, he noted that Justice Garba had treated the citation as a “mere mistake” and substituted the Customs and Excise Management Act (CEMA) as the statutory foundation.
“The question is straightforward: What law authorised the Supreme Court to do that? What law authorised the court to take a count pleaded under one Act and send it to trial under another? The Supreme Court is not the prosecutor. It is a neutral arbiter. If the law gives it the power to substitute the statutory foundation of a criminal accusation, show us the law,” Ifedi concluded.
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